The question — what is the right way and when is the right time to expose children to the arts?

So. A little background and full disclosure: I am passionate about exposing children of all ages to arts experiences, and I spend a great deal of my personal time to make those experiences positive. The author of the below post is among other things a professional and a mom. She is well respected by those who have the privilege of knowing her.

The Philadelphia Orchestra performs each summer at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) located in Saratoga Springs, NY. Performances span a three week period and provide a variety of offerings for diverse audiences. Friday nights happen to be billed as the Family Night Series, sponsored by CDPHP. Classical performances are further sponsored by the General Electric Kids in Free program. One of the biggest challenges for the arts today is declining audiences in younger demographics.

I invite you to read on and weigh in whether you have kids or not:

Family night is great but can be miserable if other patrons don’t want you there, regardless of how well behaved your kids may be. We have four now and we often get unsolicited comments about having our hands full without people actually considering how good they are. I run a very tight ship because I refuse to be stranded at home.

Last night we attended the orchestra. I held my 7+ month old, my husband held his twin sister and the 5 and 7 year old sat between us. I made sure that they sat still, were comfortable to prevent whining and made sure they kept their feet off the seats in front of them.

A man, his wife and mother sat in front of us and after the performance started, the mother yelled at someone for talking. I don’t use yell lightly- she actually said “shut up”. At intermission the man in front of us pointed his finger at my five-year old daughter and snapped “Would you stop kicking my seat young lady?” He didn’t address me or her father- he tore into a five year old and clearly scared her. I snapped back at him not to speak to her, to speak to me. I would have apologized and prevented a problem if there was one but he didn’t give us that opportunity. My husband and I had words with him, then the man stood up and faced us until we packed up and left just before 9 p.m. We have stayed later in the past and the kids still behaved. To say this was an unnerving experience is an understatement.

What irritates me is the negative impression left on my children. They could associate this event with some scary, intolerant guy but we won’t let that happen. We’ll go back. So guy, you might lighten up and consider being more tolerant because we have to tolerate you too. Please be aware that it’s family night and the reason they have free ice cream and goody bags is because kids are welcome, even encouraged to attend. Be mindful that that they are kids and they need to be taught to appreciate the arts, just like you were. Be grateful that I didn’t park them in front of the TV for the night, or 10-18 years- we took them out to a performance. The arts need children as much as children need the arts.

There are three main components to any jazz piece: melody/harmony, time and form. All members of the group are responsible for each of these. It’s easy to relegate the drums to playing time, the bass to outlining the harmony and the guitar to playing the melody. If that’s all that happened in the performance of each tune, it would be boring.

When you improvise over a tune, all of these aspects are fair game and should be used by the soloist and the ensemble at all times. Each of the performers is listening to the others not to react to what is happening, but to add to it and respond to what is being played at the time. I have chosen six originals and one arrangement for the Jazz Club performance this year and they are not far from the standard tradition. It’s a variety of modern harmony, bebop, funk and ballads. We’ll be doing the traditional head/solo/head treatment on most of them, but the goal is to blend the improvising together with the melody and vice versa.

“I’m really looking forward to playing with Daniel Foose (bass) and Danny Welchel (drums). Playing in a trio setting provides a lot of freedom to explore the avenues of time, melody and form and getting to play with these musicians will be a lot of fun!”

SARATOGA SPRINGS — “Keeping Company with Cage,” presented Sunday evening at Skidmore College’s Arthur Zankel Music Center, provided a lovely and textured setting for the raw gem of Cage’s “Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.”

Skidmore dance department chair Debra J. Fernandez and former art professor Margo Mensing conceived of and produced the event in honor of the centennial of the late composer’s birth. Framing “Sonatas and Interludes” with movement, video imagery and artful lighting, they succeeded in creating a mood–enigmatic, abstract and atmospheric–that gracefully complemented and enhanced the music without detracting from it or trying to render it more conventionally accessible or entertaining.

The performance will be restaged on June 9, as part of SaratogaArtsFest 2012.

Played consummately on Sunday by Skidmore’s president emeritus David Porter, “Sonatas and Interludes” is one of Cage’s more melodic works, in comparison to the cacophonous sound collages often paired with the dances of his partner, Merce Cunningham. The piano is “prepared” via the insertion of some 75 objects–including bolts, screws, mutes and a large pink eraser–inserted between the strings; during the first section of the work, audiences could see some of these alterations in a video of the piano’s insides projected on the stage’s side wall. The resulting sound is said to resemble the gamelan, a xylophone-like instrument from Indonesia.

Fernandez’s choreography for her student dancers (five seniors and two juniors, joined by a 2011 graduate) also takes inspiration from the East, in this case from Zen minimalism. As the repetitive notes fell like rain onto metal or into still water, the dancers stretched into extensions and balances, forming elegant shapes in space that sometimes echoed geometry and sometimes the swooping curves of Oriental calligraphy. Paralleling the hue of the music without attempting direct reflection, the movement remained cool, almost detached.

An additional layer was added to the experience during the second section of the work: real-time video of the dancers’ movements, projected onto the back and side walls, revealing alternate angles to the audience’s eyes. For the final two sections, the glass expanse of the Zankel’s back wall was uncovered, revealing a natural backdrop of spare trees against the darkening sky.

The final sequences of ensemble dancing, mirroring the growing intricacies of the composition, wove together entwined duets, angular lifts and circular arrangements reminiscent of Henri Matisse’s famous “Dance” paintings. There were glimpses of Cunningham, too, when the dancers moved like interconnected pieces in a kinetic sculpture. The group of lithe, expressive dancers perfectly captured the balance of intensity and pensiveness. The dance, along with the music, ended just as it should, without fanfare or spectacle.

The Skidmore College Department of Theater is pleased to announce its Spring 2012 Mainstage production, AJAX IN IRAQby Ellen McLaughlin, directed by Lary Opitz. Performances are April 13-15 and 19-22, 2012. All shows are in the Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Theater at 8:00pm except Sunday matinees at 2:00pm.

Past and present collide in Ellen McLaughlin’s mash-up of Sophocles’ classic tragedy Ajax with the recently ended war in Iraq. The play follows the parallel narratives of Ajax, an ancient Greek military hero, and A. J., a modern female, American soldier, and explores the timeless struggle soldiers face in trying to make sense of war.

From Director Lary Opitz: “We’re very excited to be presenting a production that deals so well with the important questions surrounding our soldiers returning from Iraq and currently serving in Afghanistan. This play combines AJAX with the story of a female American soldier stationed in Iraq. The play focuses on the timeless concerns about how we deal with our heroes and how soldiers struggle to make sense out of the wars they have been sent to fight. We believe that this play is certainly timely and we are proud to be able to honor our soldiers and veterans with this work.”

For reservations, call the Skidmore Theater Box Office at (518) 580-5439 or email boxoffice@skidmore.edu. Tickets are $12 general admission and $8 for students and senior citizens. For group sales, contact Kathy Mendenhall at (518) 580-5431 or kmendenh@skidmore.edu.

About The Skidmore College Department of Theater:

The Skidmore Theater Department is a pre-professional program that offers students the opportunity to pursue the serious study of the theater arts within a liberal arts setting. Courses within the department afford training in the basic demands of the discipline–physical and vocal control, technique in acting and directing, technical and design skills–as well as the opportunity for advanced study, practical production experience, study abroad, and off-campus internships. The college liberal arts requirements help the student to understand the moral, intellectual, and political context in which any artist practices.